Leading with Clarity: Self-Awareness, Civil Discourse, and the Future of Healthcare Culture with Dr. Jessica Bunin

What if healthcare’s greatest barrier is not funding, technology, or policy, but leaders’ lack of self-awareness?

In this episode of SoundPractice, host Mike Sacopulos talks with Jess Bunin, MD, MHPE, FACP, FCCM, CEC, a psychiatrist, author, and co-founder of All Levels Leadership, a consulting firm designed to revolutionize healthcare leadership training.

Dr. Bunin brings a perspective forged at West Point and through a military career that included deployment to Iraq, leadership as an ICU director and chief of critical care, and service as dean of community at the Uniformed Services University, the nation’s military medical school. She argues that healthcare’s deepest wounds are relational—and that healing them starts with leaders doing the hard work of understanding themselves.

Dr. Bunin discusses:

- Why physicians often overestimate their self-awareness, and what research reveals about the inverse relationship between confidence and competence.
- How struggling as a program director helped her distinguish between mentoring for her own success and mentoring around a resident’s needs.
- How today’s medical students and residents differ from those trained 15 years ago, and why digital communication, COVID, and political polarization have weakened the skills needed for productive disagreement.
- How patients have changed as well, and why declining doctor-patient trust and the rise of Dr. Google make emotional attunement essential.
- The CLEAR framework for civil discourse: Create psychological safety, Listen actively, Establish common ground, Adjust your thinking, and Respond skillfully.

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org